Uganda grass antelope
| Uganda grass antelope | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
_(6857288676).jpg)
Uganda antelopes in Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda, a male in front, a female in the back. |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Kobus thomasi | ||||||||||||
| ( Sclater , 1895) |
The Uganda grass antelope ( Kobus thomasi ), also known as Uganda Kob , is an African antelope from the waterbuck genus . It occurs in the west and north-west of Uganda, in South Sudan, west of the Nile and in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Populations in the steppes on the shores of Lake Victoria in southwest Kenya and northwest Tanzania have become extinct. The reason was hunting and the spread of human settlements.
features
Uganda grass antelopes reach a length of 125 to 180 cm and a shoulder height of 70 to 105 cm, making them the largest antelopes in the Kob group. Males are about 50% larger than females, and their necks are thicker and more muscular. The weight of the males is 50 to 120 kg, that of the females 60 to 77 kg. The horns of the males can be 50 to 69 cm long. Females are polled. The smooth, slightly shiny fur is colored reddish brown, often with a slight yellowish tinge. The ventral side and the inside of the limbs are white. The area around the eyes, the tip of the snout, the throat and the inside of the ears are also white. The 10 to 15 cm long tail is white on the underside and ends with a bushy, black tip. There is a blackish stripe on the front of all four limbs and a white band runs around each leg just above the hooves. The horns are S-shaped and clearly fluted. Seen from the side, they bend backwards and then upwards.
The dark stripes on the front of the legs are blacker in the Uganda grass antelope than in the Senegal grass antelope ( Kobus kob ) and the Cameroon grass antelope ( Kobus loderi ) and white spots on the throat and face are more pronounced than in the two related species but not as intensely as in the white-eared bog antelope ( Kobus leucotis ).
Habitat and way of life
_female_and_calf.jpg)
The Uganda grass antelope lives in moist open savannahs and in forest savannas, often near rivers, lakes, swamps or wet lowlands with watering holes. Depending on how favorable the habitat is for the animals, eight to 50 grass antelopes live on one square kilometer. They form loose, temporary herds of mostly 30 to 50 individual animals. In the rainy season, when there is plenty to eat, the herd can contain up to 1000 individuals. The Uganda grass antelope feeds mainly on short, green grasses. Males are territorial. The territory is not marked, but the claim to ownership is only indicated by whistling shouts and by strutting with your head raised and ears down. If another male enters the territory, serious fighting can ensue. Ownership of a certain territory is limited in time and can usually only be maintained for a few days to a few months. The main predators of the Uganda grass antelope are lion, leopard, spotted hyena and cheetah.
Reproduction
_mating_ritual_composite.jpg)
Newborn Uganda prairie antelopes are seen year round, but most are born at the end of the rainy season from September to December. The gestation period is 225 to 270 days. Only one young is born at a time, which lies in hiding for the first six weeks of its life and only then follows the mother. Females become sexually mature at 13 months of age, while males are five months older when they reach sexual maturity. Uganda grass antelopes can live to be 17 years old.
Systematics
The Uganda grass antelope is a species from the genus of waterbuck ( Kobus ), to which around a dozen species belong. The genus stands within the tribe of the Reduncini and the family of horned bearers (Bovidae). The reedbucks ( Redunca ) and the deer antelope ( Pelea ) are also counted among the Reduncini . The representatives of the tribe represent medium-sized to large antelopes adapted to water-rich landscapes, which feed mainly on grass-eating.
As next of kin of Uganda grass antelope may Senegal grass antelope ( Kobus kob ) and the white ear Moorantilope ( Kobus leucotis ) be construed. All three representatives and possibly also the Cameroon grass antelope ( Kobus loderi ) were originally considered to belong to a species ( Kobus kob ), colloquially this was referred to as "Kob". Within the species Kobus kob in the broader sense, they had the status of an independent subspecies. In an extensive revision of the ungulate systematics by the two zoologists Colin Groves and Peter Grubb in 2011, however, the "Kob" was divided into four separate species, which gave the individual subspecies a species status. Due to the close relationship of the four antelope forms, they are grouped together by the authors in the Kobus kob group.
|
Internal systematics of the Kobus kob group according to Lorenzen et al. 2007 (simplified)
|
In molecular genetic analyzes published in 2001, the relationships within the Kobus kob group turned out to be more complex, since the Uganda grass antelope behaves paraphyletically to the Senegal grass antelope . Further studies from 2007 confirm this finding. In this, two clades could be worked out on the basis of the haplotypes : a western one with the Senegal and Uganda grass antelope and an eastern one with the white-eared bog antelope. Furthermore, it was recognized that the population in the Murchison Falls National Park , although phenotypically the Uganda grass antelope corresponds to the genotype but according to part of the White Ear Moorantilope. The authors traced their results back to the ancestral history of the Kobus kob group. Accordingly, the precursor consisted of today's types Pleistozän isolated from each other and formed a western and eastern group (a "proto kob " - and a "proto leucotis group"). The western group later spread to the east into what is now the habitat of the Uganda grass antelope. Later again, individual populations of the eastern group migrated south and hybridized with representatives of the western group. Due to the complex relationship between the Senegal and Uganda grass antelope, the authors question the independent taxonomic status of the latter.
The Uganda grass antelope was first described in 1895 by the British zoologist Philip Lutley Sclater under the name Cobus thomasi . His work is based on the head of a male individual from Berkeley Bay on Lake Victoria on the Uganda-Kenya border. The region is considered a type area of the species. The animal was at the time in the Natural History Museum in London. Originally the waterbuck of East Africa was assigned to the Senegal grass antelope or the white-eared bog antelope. On the basis of the new individual, however, both Sclater and Oldfield Thomas recognized differences to these species. During the same period, Oscar Neumann presented some animals from the former colonies of German East Africa and British East Africa to the Natural History Museum, which he had collected on his trip between 1892 and 1895. Here, too, the scientists involved came to the conclusion that it must be a new species. Neumann then prepared a description and named the species in honor of Oldfield Thomas with the specific epithet thomasi . The printing of the article was delayed, however. In the meantime, Sclater had created his own article in which he adopted Neumann's suggestion and also identified him as an author of the new kind. Neumann's own work did not appear until the year after Sclater's first description, in which he used the term Adenota thomasi ( Adenota is a synonym for Kobus , introduced by John Edward Gray in 1850). Accordingly, Neumann's Adenota thomasi is a more recent synonym for Sclater's Kobus thomasi .
Danger
The IUCN lists the Uganda grass antelope as not endangered (Least Concern). The population is estimated to be 40,000 to 100,000 individuals and more than 95% of the animals live in protected areas, including the Southern National Park in South Sudan and the Queen Elizabeth and Murchison Falls National Parks in Uganda and Garamba and Virunga in the Congo.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e José R Castelló: Bovids of the World: Antelopes, Gazelles, Cattle, Goats, Sheep, and Relatives. Princeton University Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0691167176 . Pages 46–47.
- ↑ a b Kobus kob ssp. thomasi in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2016 Posted by: IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group, 2016. Accessed March 29, 2018th
- ↑ J. Birungi and P. Arctander: Molecular Systematics and Phylogeny of the Reduncini (Artiodactyla: Bovidae) Inferred from the Analysis of Mitochondrial Cytochrome b Gene Sequences. Journal of Mammalian Evolution 8 (2), 2001, pp. 125-147
- ↑ Don E. Wilson and DeeAnn M. Reeder: Mammal Species of the World. A taxonomic and geographic Reference. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005 ( [1] )
- ↑ Frauke Fischer: Kobus kob Kob. In: Jonathan Kingdon, David Happold, Michael Hoffmann, Thomas Butynski, Meredith Happold and Jan Kalina (eds.): Mammals of Africa Volume VI. Pigs, Hippopotamuses, Chevrotain, Giraffes, Deer and Bovids. Bloomsbury, London 2013, pp. 439-444
- ^ A b Colin Groves and Peter Grubb: Ungulate Taxonomy. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1421400938 . Page 192.
- ↑ a b Eline D. Lorenzen, Rikke de Neergaard, Peter Arctander and Hans R. Siegismund: Phylogeography, hybridization and Pleistocene refugia of the kob antelope (Kobus kob). Molecular Ecology 16, 2007, pp. 3241-3252
- ↑ J. Birungi and P. Arctander: Large sequence divergence of mitochondrial DNA genotypes of the control region within populations of the African antelope, kob (Kobus kob). Molecular Ecology 9, 2000, pp. 1997-2008
- ^ Philip Lutley Sclater: Exhibition of, an remarks upon, a head of an antelope from British East Africa. Proceedings of the Zoological Society 1895, pp. 868-870 ( [2] )
- ^ Oscar Neumann: Description of a new species of antelope from East Africa. Proceedings of the Zoological Society 1896, pp. 192-194 ( [3] )
- ^ Philip Lutley Sclater and Oldfield Thomas: The Book of Antelopes. Volume II. London, 1894–1900, pp. 131–136 ( [4] )
